Ubiquitous coverage

Mobile service can be a scarce commodity in the mountains. Want to send photos to your friends during a hiking trip? No service available. You can't even call for help on your phone in an emergency. Because the mobile network uses stationary base stations, it can be difficult to provide coverage in certain locations. Non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) can help to solve this problem.

In the future, NTNs could help to realize entirely different scenarios. Imagine a sailing boat with an emergency out on the Atlantic. The boat is far from the coast and terrestrial mobile service is unavailable. Still, help is on the way. A plane appears in the sky and allows the mobile station to connect and send an emergency message via SMS. Aircraft, satellites and drones provide added connectivity between base stations located on the ground, enabling worldwide mobile communications with the aid of non-terrestrial networks. NTNs can thus supplement the existing terrestrial networks.

Global coverage – step by step

Mobile communications can thus penetrate every region of the world, but only step by step. First, basic services like SMS will be enabled. This will be followed by email service, access to webpages on the internet, and perhaps even mobile calls. Video streaming in the middle of the Atlantic is probably still far off in the future. But in any case, mobile and satellite communications are growing together progressively thanks to 5G.

The 3GPP standardization body laid the foundation for non-terrestrial networks in 2022. Further development steps are to follow – until 6G finally delivers the ultimate three-dimensional network.

How is Rohde & Schwarz involved?

For all of this to work properly, the user equipment will need to cooperate with "base stations" that are much more mobile, while repeatedly searching at high speed to find suitable connection points. This also has consequences for the standardization of mobile networks due to the need to interact quickly and dynamically. An algorithm controls who can use which frequency – in order to enable mobile communications in the future even on the high seas or in remote regions.

Rohde & Schwarz is currently hard at work on different solutions for monitoring satellites and frequencies as well as for testing the ecosystem that supports non-terrestrial networks. One good example is related to simulation of the entire system from the user equipment perspective. Moreover, the specialized antennas used for satellites must also be tested. They need to be precisely aimed at the receiver in order to compensate for high losses over the long transmission path.

As a technology company, Rohde & Schwarz has many years of experience in developing test and measurement equipment and solutions for mobile communications as well as satellite communications.